Escursion a la Caverna de Cacahuamilpa y Ascension al Crater del Popocatepetl
- SIGNED
- Mexico: Impr. del Colegio del Tecpam, 1868
Mexico: Impr. del Colegio del Tecpam, 1868. Good plus.. ix,58,[2]pp., plus four lithographs on card. Small quarto. Contemporary quarter sheep and paper boards, spine gilt. Moderate scuffing to spine, boards a bit rubbed, light wear to edges and corners. Light tanning and foxing to text; scattered soiling to plates. A most unusual book containing an account of an excursion to the crater of the volcano Popocatépetl and the Caverna de Cacahuamilpa, illustrated with four lithographs on stiff card. The author was a prominent Italian artist who taught at Mexico City's famed San Carlos Academy. Eugenio Landesio (born in Italy 1810, arrived in Mexico 1855, died in Paris 1879), undertook the excursion described in the present work in 1868. He traveled to the grotto of Cacahuamilpa in the state of Morelos and ascended the crater of the Popocatépetl volcano. The text is in Spanish and reflects the artist-author's deep curiosity and scientific interests. The lithographs are based on artwork and drawings from the expedition by Landesio himself, and were executed by the renowned Mexican landscape artist, José Velasco. Velasco studied under Landesio at San Carlos, and developed a keen interest in natural science alongside his artistic skill, that later expressed itself in the most well-known, large-scale landscapes of 19th-century Mexico. He is known to have participated in other scientific expeditions during this period, and made lithographs of another volcano, Ceboruco, in 1870. Popocatepetl became the subject of several famous Velasco works of the late-19th century.
The printing history of the work is also quite interesting. There seem to have been two editions of the text, one with fifty-eight pages and an errata leaf (as here), and a corrected, expanded version with seventy-one pages. Further, copies were either unillustrated or illustrated, and amongst the illustrated copies, some were supplied with lithographs (as here) and some received mounted photographs of the lithographic images. Palau only describes four plates, but makes no mention whether they are original photographs. The National Union Catalog entry also fails to mention photographs. According to Teresa Matabuena Peláez, who checked ten examples for the early 21st-century reprint of this work, one had lithographs and two were photographically illustrated, with the other seven copies not illustrated at all. The lithographs are captioned as follows:
1) Caverna de Cacahuamilpa, tramo nombrado Salon de los Monumentos.
2) Tramo Nombrado Salon de Los Organos.
3) Popocatepetl, su crater visto desde el labio S. E. Mirando Hácia N.O.
4) El Popocatepetl Sacado desde el Cerro de Tlamaca.
OCLC locates five copies of any issue in U.S. institutions, at UCLA, Tulane, Washington State, University of Texas, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Of these, only the catalog records for copies at UCLA, WSU, and Wisconsin note the presence of four plates.
Palau 131038 (calling for only 58pp., as here). Teresa Matabuena Peláez (ed.), Excursion a la Caverna de Cacahuamilpa y Ascensión al Cráter del Popocatépetl (2007), p.16.
The printing history of the work is also quite interesting. There seem to have been two editions of the text, one with fifty-eight pages and an errata leaf (as here), and a corrected, expanded version with seventy-one pages. Further, copies were either unillustrated or illustrated, and amongst the illustrated copies, some were supplied with lithographs (as here) and some received mounted photographs of the lithographic images. Palau only describes four plates, but makes no mention whether they are original photographs. The National Union Catalog entry also fails to mention photographs. According to Teresa Matabuena Peláez, who checked ten examples for the early 21st-century reprint of this work, one had lithographs and two were photographically illustrated, with the other seven copies not illustrated at all. The lithographs are captioned as follows:
1) Caverna de Cacahuamilpa, tramo nombrado Salon de los Monumentos.
2) Tramo Nombrado Salon de Los Organos.
3) Popocatepetl, su crater visto desde el labio S. E. Mirando Hácia N.O.
4) El Popocatepetl Sacado desde el Cerro de Tlamaca.
OCLC locates five copies of any issue in U.S. institutions, at UCLA, Tulane, Washington State, University of Texas, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Of these, only the catalog records for copies at UCLA, WSU, and Wisconsin note the presence of four plates.
Palau 131038 (calling for only 58pp., as here). Teresa Matabuena Peláez (ed.), Excursion a la Caverna de Cacahuamilpa y Ascensión al Cráter del Popocatépetl (2007), p.16.